


Unbearable

by YuriOokino



Category: Sherlock (TV)
Genre: Alternate Ending, POV Third Person, Reichenbach Falls, Sherlock's POV, Suicide, What if?, canonical cases
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-06-20
Updated: 2012-06-20
Packaged: 2017-11-08 04:47:05
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,680
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/439306
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/YuriOokino/pseuds/YuriOokino
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>“I dream about the murders.”<br/>“I don’t think it’s unusual. I dream about them too, sometimes. Especially the most terrifying.”<br/>“I dream about them… in anticipation.”<br/>---<br/>Is Sherlock... a fake?</p>
            </blockquote>





	Unbearable

**Author's Note:**

> This time I'm not going to complain about my English cause my fic have been reviewed and corrected by three amazing betas: thanks to Rachel for her advices, to Molly for her fierce support, and to Tina for being my ray of sunshine in the cruel fanfictions' world.

“The measuring tape” he said, raising his head and staring into space, turned towards the fireplace. There was nothing there, but through the black hole he could see another place, another time. He could see the moment the killer had grabbed the tape and strangled his sister, with a snarl, primitive look in his eyes.  
“How do you know?”  
“Have you ever met a tailor without a tape? He used it to kill her, that’s why he hasn’t got one in his workshop. Phone Lestrade, we’ll go there.”  
Sherlock rose from the couch and took a brief glance at John before walking into the kitchen: wonder, admiration, pride. His face was so readable. Sherlock smiled, satisfied.  
Another case solved.

 

The tailor wasn’t amazed at all. He thought that getting rid of the tape had been the smartest choice. It had been an insult to his poor intelligence. He really had believed nothing would had framed him, but he was wrong. Failure always results in heartbreak.  
That heavy metal bar: he probably used it to hang up the finished dresses. Probably? No, Sherlock was sure about it, even while the metal bar was descending on his head and the look in tailor’s eyes bordered on insanity.

 

His perception was strange; he was not sure about the real distance of objects or their colour. The light was too bright and hurt his eyes in some moments. Was that John? Was he close enough to be touched? He would’ve liked to try but suddenly he couldn’t raise his arm. Just rest there a little more. The pain in his head was increasing, seemingly, exponentially.  
John was saying something, or maybe he was shouting. Sherlock could hear just a faint hum, but he could see his eyes. What was that look? He could read fear and worry but also a bit of… disappointment? The pain in his injured head that had been migrating stealthily lower suddenly hit his chest. Why was he disappointed?  
He felt John’s hand resting on his shoulder. “Stay down. Ambulance is coming.”  
 _I don’t need an ambulance. I’m just resting_ , but he wasn’t sure whether he actually said those words or just imagined them.  
That look again: incredulity and disappointment.  
“Why did you not avoid him, or try to defend yourself?”  
 _I was deducing the bar. I miscalculated the priorities, judging from your face._  
“You got your priorities wrong” John said. He could read Sherlock’s eyes too. He was not stupid. Not completely. But he shook off his head sadly, resigned.  
The sensation was as if Sherlock had been struck again.

 

Lying on his bed was certainly more comfortable than lying on a hard, dirty floor in a murder’s workshop. But still, there was something painful that he kept on remembering and that made him feel awkward.  
“Your brilliant brain seems not in danger,” John stepped into the room. He sat on the bed’s right edge, resting on his left hand, leaning towards him, “but you have to take care of yourself and stop acting like a reckless prick.”  
“I can’t understand” Sherlock replied. He didn’t care about John’s words, just about his angry glance.  
“What?”  
 _Why do I care so much about your approval_ , but those were not the right words to say.  
“But I solved the case, didn’t I?” he asked instead. A tiny smile on John’s face, and Sherlock felt a little relieved.  
“Yes.” John looked down at the sheets, remembering a pleasant memory. Then his expression suddenly turned angry again and he rose, walking out of the room, without saying a word.  
The horrible sensation didn’t fade away. Sherlock remembered it: Baskerville, the unease, the fear of sensing a feeling that wasn’t his. A parasitic thought.  
The pain erupted in his head.

 

“Are you all right, Sherlock?” asked Lestrade.  
“Perfectly fine.”  
“So, why that bandage?”  
“Doctor’s annoying precaution. And now if you could just shut up and let me work…”  
He was resting on his heels – joined hands under his chin – studying the body of a man who had died in terror. The grimace on his face was grotesque, full of pain and fear. No sign of violence, no blood, nothing misplaced.  
“The coroner said probably an heart-attack, but nothing’s sure before the autopsy. Anyway, I think this is evidently… “  
“Shut up!” Sherlock repeated.  
There was nothing interesting on the body; he could keep searching but he knew what he was looking for wasn’t there. But it was near.  
He rose slowly, looking around. The body had fallen from the chair in front of the table that was covered in a white sheet. On the table some cards: an unfinished Solitaire. He placed the Jack of spades wrongly. A glass of strong drink, half plenty. Scotch. Nothing relevant in it. A candle. Why place a candle on a table in a house with electricity?  
“Turn the lights on” Sherlock ordered, someone obeyed. He heard the switch’s noise but the light didn’t come. “Obvious” he murmured.  
Sherlock sniffed the candle. He recognized the smell: a sudden intuition, a flash in his mind, an epiphany.  
“Take this to the laboratory,” he said, handing the object to Lestrade, “this is your murder weapon.”  
Two hours later they received the tests’ results: a rare indigenous root that, when burnt, caused hallucinations and cardiac failure. The brother-in-law had just come back from a long trip in Africa; he hated the victim. Perfect. Case solved.  
Sherlock met John’s eyes; he was smiling in admiration and pride. It was like a fresh breeze in a hot day.

 

The rain beating on the umbrellas made crispy sounds. They had to cover the body as soon as possible, but any other attempts to prevent damages to the clues would have been useless: the rain had already washed away everything from the body and its vicinity; the corpse was cold and a bit rigid; even the time of the death was difficult to tell.  
The rest of the Yard was wandering the street, looking for anything the water hadn’t washed away yet, with poor results. Between the body and the sidewalk a stream was flowing insistently.  
“I hypothesise she died between eight and twenty hours ago. It’s a large gap of time, but this rain…” John rose from the body looking contrite. “We have to wait for the autopsy.”  
Sherlock’s headache started with an annoying hum and began to pound steadily. He didn’t reply. John stared at him shrugging, waiting for the consulting detective to make some clever statement.  
“Twenty hours is a time way too expansive. This street must have been crossed during last night, at least once or twice. She died not a long time ago, but the body is still rigid. We have to look for what could have caused it.”  
Sherlock felt the urge to look at John, to read his expression. Headache.  
The stream kept flowing. He began following it with accurate and wide steps. John behind him. The street became larger and the stream split in two. Left or right. Right. He walked for some few feet. And then again. Maybe a few more. Yes, that must have been the right place. Sherlock crouched. There was a grid on the side of the sidewalk. He knew it had to be there. Trapped in the bars he found the murdered weapon: a syringe.  
John reached him and put a hand on his shoulder. Sherlock felt him leaning over to see. He heard his breath becoming louder in surprise.  
“Fantastic! How did you… At first attempt…”  
“We need to be creative, John.” Sherlock smiled, pleased. The headache had vanished. “I am creative, actually, and it was very simple to envisage. I might even say it was like a déjà vu.”

 

His room. That was his room. Well, obvious: it was night, he was sleeping and he was in his room, in his bed. Perfectly normal. He was dreaming about something that made him wake up. He had pictures in his mind, random coloured fragments. He shouldn’t have tried to give them sense, human mind tries to build rational bridges between images, but it can’t. The human mind is limited, even his, sometimes. It’s just a chemical matter, humans tend to be rational, Sherlock especially. That’s why he should stop now, before the dream got corrupted.  
Though something uncomfortable was making him wonder; he hated it. Not thinking, doubting.  
He dreamt about a murder. A brilliant murder, that should be said. Obviously: he loved murders, mysteries, puzzles. He was clever, so he used to dream about clever murders.  
A young woman had been drugged and hidden in a coffin, under another corpse beyond suspicions: an old woman who had died of old age. The old lady got a small funeral and the coffin had been buried. That’s was what he should have remembered about his dream, not the other senseless, messy chippings: something about his own gloves, chloroform, John smiling, white, a worm digging through rotten flesh. Those illogical thoughts made his headache worsen.

 

“We know they’re keeping her as a prisoner, but we don’t have any proofs and we don’t know where she could be!” Lestrade was upset, he was pacing quickly in front of the mawkish, white cottage. Many policemen stood in the garden, looking worried and a bit bored, shrugging: they didn’t know what to do.  
“We have already frisked the house” Lestrade carried on. “We didn’t have a mandate,” he admitted eventually, “nothing, not a single piece of potential proof, except a bottle of chloroform, which is definitely not enough to incriminate someone.”  
Sherlock stared at the dazzling white of the house. So damn white. “Chloroform, you said.”  
“Chloroform” Lestrade repeated, visibly anxious.  
John was softly stamping a foot at the mossy soil, thinking. He had his arms folded in fron of his chest. He looked at Sherlock, doubtful.  
“Maybe we could… we are not from the police, we could ask to visit the house… and take another look.”  
 _Silly idea. You’re not so silly, John. You know it woldn’t work._  
The headache was rising in his head. A painful escalation. Like a worm gnawing his brain, piece by piece. Sherlock closed his eyes and took a breath. He had to find a solution.  
A bell tolled, not very far. Sherlock turned at his right, saw the little village’s steeple. The church was made by bright stones, rustic, country. On the back there was a cosy cemetery, some people entering the church.  
“Is that a funeral?” Sherlock asked. Obvious question, he didn’t actually need an answer.  
“Yes. An old aunt of the house’s owners… where are you going?” Lestrade shouted watching Sherlock dashing towards the church.  
“Was she fat?” Sherlock demanded to an old lady dressing black, who was following the coffin into the church.  
“Pardon me?” The lady was understandably confused.  
“I’m sorry, my deepest sympathy. Was the dead woman fat?”  
“N-no, she wasn’t! She was still pretty and…”  
“So, why did you use such a large coffin?”  
The lady was about to burst into tears. “She was my friend, I don’t have idea… She deserved a large coffin!”  
Sherlock stopped listening to her and walked to the head of the small column. “Police here! Put it down!” People all around were mumbling, confused. “Put it down!”  
Lestrade arrived running, flashing his badge. “Do as he says!” summoned, than he whispered to Sherlock: “I hope you know what you’re doing.”  
John helped in removing the coffin’s lid. Inside it, an old woman was lying. Certainly she wasn’t dead during the last week, judging by the smell and the decay.  
John was baffled, he looked at Sherlock with a hint of panic in his eyes. The headache was about to make his brain blow up.  
“Remove her!” said Sherlock, gritting his teeth.  
The coffin had a false bottom. They lifted it and discovered the second corpse: the young kidnapped woman.  
“She’s still alive!” John had put his fingers on her carotid artery.  
Confusion. Policemen all around, medics from the first-aid, people shouting. Sherlock sat in the grass, panting, trying to concentrate against the pain.  
John leaned on him. “That was amazing, Sherlock! You were amazing!”  
Sherlock grabbed his arm, firmly. “Say that again.”  
“You were fantastic.”  
His eyes were sincere; he had pride and admiration in his smile. Sherlock finally could breathe regularly, the headache was vanishing. He reached a hand to his mouth, hiding a smile. From his glove wafted the vague scent of chloroform.

 

The first steps were as if in a dream, then he realised his bare feet really were bringing him to John’s bedroom, he stood in front of that door, feeling the coarse wood under his fingertips. The door wasn’t closed, just ajar. Did John forget? No, he had soldier habits: he did it on purpose. Was that a silent invite? Or just a precaution?  
A muffled creak, a blade of light hit the bed-clothes and arched over a wrapped body.  
“John...”  
Silence.  
“John?”  
A thrill.  
“W-what?” The question came a bit too loudly. John really was sleeping then, and he was surprised by that interruption. “What’s going on, Sherlock?”  
“Do you have… anything against headache?”  
John sat and pushed the sheet aside. “Headache? God, do you still… why didn’t you tell me before?!” He leaned across the bed and reached to the bedside table on his left. He opened the drawer and Sherlock heard pills clacking in a plastic holder.  
“Come in, sit.” Sherlock stepped in. That room smelled of John. “I have a glass of water here… I hope you don’t mind if… I’ve already used…”  
Sherlock took the glass without replying and drank the pills, sitting on the bed’s edge.  
“Do you think it’s because of the fight? The one with the tailor, I mean.”  
“Probably.”  
“Well, I suppose… it’s pretty normal, you’re constantly stressed due by pressing cases and with this arguable diet like yours…”  
“Something makes me think,” Sherlock interrupted.  
“What’s the news?” He read a sort of hope in John’s attempting of smile.  
“My dreams.”  
“Nightmares? Uh, wait what are you-…”  
Sherlock rested his forehead on John’s shoulder. He hadn’t planned it, but that place seemed to be the most comfortable and healing.  
His voice was a whisper. “I dream about the murders.”  
“I-I don’t think it’s unusual. I dream about them too, sometimes. Especially the most terrifying.”  
“I dream about them… in anticipation.”  
Sherlock sensed John freezing for a moment, then a timid tremble: he was trying to laugh. “You know, I’ve read about that. Some people can do it and you have such a strange mind… I mean, who knows how your brain really works. Probably you’re influenced.”  
Silence, his shoulder became motionless again.  
“How… many times?”  
“A few.”  
“How many?” John insisted.  
A new explosion of pain forced Sherlock to delay the answer. Something foreign was sinking into his brain. “Four.”  
“Well… coincidence?”  
“When I’m about to solve a case, I see them. They’re like stranger’s memories.”  
He couldn’t understand; that was the real pain, his real desperation. And then there was the urge, the hunger, the need to be praised by John, to see his approval and his pride in his smile, in his eyes, and hear them in his words. Again and again, he couldn’t help himself. His brain was yearning for praises. Something must have broken when he was hit by that bar, he knew it. Those thoughts were like a cancer. But the only way he had to make them stop was John.  
“How’s your headache?” John was trying to escape from the uncomfortable subject, that made the pain increasing.  
“Are you proud of me?” Sherlock asked in one swallow. _Make this pain stop. Please. Please_. He could hear the pang in his own voice. It was shameful, but suddenly he had receded, needed attention like a child, didn’t care about the poor impression. He had to hear those words, now!  
“I… yes…” John was worried. Maybe even scared by him, “I am, Sherlock. You’re so clever and brilliant.”  
“Tell me.”  
John sighed in pain and put a hand on Sherlock’s head.  
“I am proud of you. “

 

All the people in the carriage stared at him wide-eyed. An old couple pushed away the other passengers and vanished among the crowd. What was wrong with them? That’s why Sherlock hated the Tube: it was populated by drunkards, strangers, lunatics, disgustingly ordinary people who got scared just because he was sitting there. Handing a harpoon. Covered in blood. It was not his fault; no one of the cabs had stopped for him. Idiots.  
 _It was an experiment_ , he wanted to shout at them, but it would have been useless.  
“How tedious!” he sighed entering the flat. John looked up at him, dismayed.  
“Where have you been?! What’s that thing?” He was exaggeratedly anxious, he was standing in front of him, but not too close, squeezing the newspaper he was reading few moments ago. The first newspaper of the day, Sherlock deduced, still smelling of printer ink  
“Don’t be boring, John. I harpooned a pig for an experiment but it was not as interesting as I thought.”  
“A pig? All night?” John didn’t believe him.  
“What’s wrong with you?”  
“You stayed out all night, I was worried about you! Why don’t you answer your bloody phone once in your life?!”  
“I haven’t noticed the time,” Sherlock spoke quietly against the headache that was rising fast. He was about to walk away, maybe take a shower: his clothes smelled of blood, not actually the most pleasant scent, but John plonked himself down in front of him, breaking up his path. He was still holding the newspaper but he placed it behind his back, as if he wanted to hide it. Of course not to hide it from Sherlock, he must have known that it was just a silly attempt. He was staring at him, his mouth half-open, his upper lip trembling a little, as if he wanted to say something but he was afraid to.  
“Did you… did you really hit a pig?”  
Sherlock looked around exasperated. “Yes, yes! What’s the problem? It was a dead pig! Are you feeling sorry for it? It had a wonderful, muddy life until it died like all the other pigs!”  
John’s pitiful expression was upsetting him. He was doubting; something strange flickered in his eyes. Could it be fear? Something very similar. He was not afraid for himself, but for someone else.  
“I believe you,” he said, at last. He was lying.  
John slowly walked up to the couch and stood still, throwing the newspaper on the floor. Sherlock left in time to see him pick up his mobile and compose a text, deliberating over each letter, shaking a little.  
Sherlock locked himself in his room, needing to be separate from the world. He took off the shirt, hardened by the blood, sat on the bed’s edge and took his head in his hands.  
Something in his brain was darkening, like an eclipse. Bright pictures flickered before his closed eyes. So much pain. Images, memories, dreams. Which was what?  
He was unable to think. He was never unable to think! Like a transparent glass something was preventing him from thinking rationally. Doubt. John’s doubt, surrounded by pain.  
Unbearable…  
…  
 _Unbearable._

_  
_

Finally, the redemption. Another case. Brilliant, indeed, but easy to solve with a careful and trained mind. Like his. But that one was glorious: all the victim’s blood had been drained and it had filled a little wading pool. The dead woman was sitting on a rocking chair next to the pool wearing a swimsuit, trying to captured some rays from the fake sun – a neon lamp – on her mortal white, bloodless skin.  
Curious, intriguing. But it wasn’t so hard to see how the killer had extracted all the blood; he could almost see him.  
“Sherlock!”  
“Not now, I’m deducing” he intoned raising a hand.  
“Sherlock…” Lestrade could be really annoying. “Stop it.”  
“You were the one who called me and now you’re changing your mind, Lestrade? The Yard cannot deal with-…” His foot produced a splashy sound. Strange. He looked down: his ankles were surrounded by blood, a revolting, metallic and sweetish smell permeated his clothes and he suddenly realised that he was standing in the middle of the pool.  
“I didn’t call you, Sherlock” said Lestrade softly. “John called me, because you disappeared during the night, like you did many nights before.”  
“Don’t talk nonsense, I perfectly remember…” He didn’t. He didn’t actually remember how he got there. “John?”  
“Don’t move, Sherlock. It’s going to be alright, don’t move!”  
He was there, too; Sherlock didn’t notice him before. His sight, previously sprinkled with darkness, rapidly cleared, revealing reality. Or not? He was sure it couldn’t be reality: Lestrade had called him on the crime scene, he was solving a puzzling case, John was assisting him, he was coming to a clever conclusion, as always.  
He stepped out of the pool drawing a red trace behind him, sensing the viscous floor under his feet.  
John rised a hand, Lestrade rised a gun.  
“Don’t do this, Sherlock” John asked. No, he was begging him.  
“Do what? I can solve it. It’s easy, I can solve it!” Sherlock kept moving, scrutinising John’s eyes. What was that? Fear? No, sadness? Desperation. Disappointment. Broken hopes.  
The pain exploded like a thousand needles. Sherlock lifted his hand trying to contain it, but he stopped when he saw his glove dripping blood. Was he injured? Why so much blood? Why could he not understand?  
“John...”  
He was looking for his eyes, a reassuring glance, a knowing smile, some explanations, because he didn’t have one. He didn’t find anything: he could only see a deep, silent horror, like the quiet desperation of a trapped bird.  
Suddenly, the pain was _unbearable._

 

Annoying. Peace, silence; like time and space were waiting for his next move, waiting to judge him. Definitely. But there was nothing to do in the bright hospital chamber, nothing to say, nothing to think about. He felt as if his brain had been washed; it was empty for the first time in his life. He couldn’t think. He couldn’t move, either, because his wrist had been handcuffed to the bed. He wouldn’t have gone anywhere, though. He didn’t have any place to go to, or to come back at.  
John was here when he woke up, informing him he had been handcuffed and those things applied on his forehead were simply electrodes. As if he couldn’t notice by himself. Probably he had been drugged because the acute pain in his head had become muffled and constant, not unlike a negligible thought. A dark-looking thought. Pitch black and viscous.  
John eventually left the room, saying nothing else. Silence again.  
A policeman had been sent to keep the room’s door under surveillance, but after motionless hours he allowed himself long breaks.  
A common criminal. He needed to accept it, now. But was not the word ‘criminal’ the most offensive and shameful one.  
Common.  
Ordinary.  
Fake.  
He looked at the handcuff around his right wrist: it wasn’t too tight. He tried to pull his hand inside the metal ring; he felt his skin ripping but his hand was moving slightly, slowly slipping. The blood on his wrist made the escape easier and suddenly he was free. Free from the handcuff. He wouldn’t have been free from his ordinariness anymore.  
There were some folded clothes on the chair. Not the ones he was wearing the night before, obviously. They had probably been sent at the police laboratories as evidence. John must have provided him new ones. He was glad to have them and to put them on; he couldn’t finish his days in an uncomfortable, paper-made hospital gown.  
A swallow silence greeted him; the corridor was empty. He had been accommodated in the quiet wing of the St Bart’s.  
He knew exactly where to go, and went upstairs with no hesitation. Two floors still to climb.

 

Sherlock looked at the people walking in the street below, leading ordinary, boring lives just some feet lower. Thirty feet, maybe? He was staring at it and taking his time. He was not afraid; he was just asking himself if it would really change anything, but there wasn’t any other decision to take.  
“Come back, Sherlock.” John’s voice was surprisingly calm. Quite remarkable. But then Sherlock turned and he discovered John was not calm at all. No, it was just terror. It was easy to mistake silent terror for calmness.  
“Why?”  
“Because it’s madness!”  
“I _am_ mad.”  
John laughed nervously. “You’re not mad, Sherlock. You are not.”  
“What am I, then?”  
“You… you’re stressed.”  
“Stressed...” Sherlock barely managed to hold back a laugh. John’s attempts to defend him were so innocent and naïve. He was looking for some pointless excuses, “of course I’m stressed: killing so many people is a challenging job.”  
“I don’t care about those people,” John replied with a quick swallow, without any hesitation. This time, Sherlock was a bit surprised.  
“Neither do I.”  
“So… what are you doing here?”  
“Enjoying the sunshine.”  
John’s face was like a stone. He didn’t like jokes in that situation and it was a pity because he could have attending at that shameful dumb show with™ amusement.  
“I’m going to jump off.”  
“No you’re not.”  
“I’m pretty sure I am the one standing on the edge of a roof.” He could feel John’s fear tingling through the air, crackling. “Go back inside, John.”  
“No!” he shouted, “Sherlock, you don’t have to do it.”  
“Then, what?” Sherlock was furious now. “Are you going to visit me in prison every day? Come to the mental hospital? Read me the newspapers’ headlines: ‘Psychotic fake detective kills his own cases?’”  
“I thought you didn’t care about the others’ opinions.”  
Reproach. Very clever.  
“I thought a lot of things too, but suddenly they’re all wrong!” Sherlock took a breath. John was annoying him but seeing him desperate hurt him. “I care about your opinion.”  
John took a few steps forward, suddenly inspired by some new hope. “My opinion haven’t changed a bit! I’m still proud of you!”  
Sherlock stopped him by raising his right hand. “How can you say that? Are you proud of a murderer?”  
“No. I’m proud of Sherlock Holmes.”  
“Then, you’re proud of no one. Sherlock Holmes doesn’t exist anymore.”  
“But you’re in front…”  
“The man in front of you is the one who killed dozens of people!” He beat his words step by step, backing off. His heels reached the space. “Who tricked you, who deduced his own homicides without even knowing it! Who praised his own intellect, his fake intellect!”  
“But they were not dozens! You actually only had five cases since you’ve been hit.”  
“The hit is not involved, it just weakened me. I remember perfectly, John. I’ve always acted driven by an addiction!”  
John paused. “What addiction?”  
Sherlock gritted his teeth. “ _You_.”  
John was losing his strengths, switched in frustration. “Come here, please. Stop this!” Sherlock sensed him powerless and saw his tears. “Please, stop this now. Let’s go home.”  
“I can’t go home.”  
“Come back; keep being the only consulting detective in the world!”  
“He had never existed.”  
“Yes! You’re still the only one in the world… you’re the only one in the world to me. Please.”  
Another short step and his foot was suspended in air. He started hearing talking and shouting below. But then another cry cracked the air, ripped by tears.  
“Sherlock!”  
John was racing forward with the bravery of desperation.  
“I won’t forgive you! Listen to me, I won’t forgive you!”  
“And this is how it should be.”  
The air filled his ears as he fell and all sounds stopped. John’s shout was silent, even his steps and his knees hitting the roof’s edge. Just few inches closer and he would probably have grabbed him, but he managed to just touch Sherlock’s cheek lightly, hitting him with his own guilt and, at the same time giving him the last taste of warmth before the inevitable cold.

**Author's Note:**

> Little note: I know that chloroform couldn't have left any smell on Sherlock's gloves since it's extremely volatile, but, well.....


End file.
